Privacy Policy

Who We Are

Maneki Homes ("we," "us," "our") is a property discovery platform operated under the John Of Japan brand. We help English-speaking buyers find property in Japan. Our website is manekihomes.com.

Information We Collect

Information you provide

• Inquiry form: Name, email, phone (optional), Instagram handle (optional), country, budget, timeline, property preferences, visa status, and your message.
• Account creation: Email address and name, or the profile information provided by Google if you sign in with Google OAuth.
• Property alerts: Your saved filter criteria and any map areas you draw when creating alerts.
• Email signup: Email address if you subscribe to guides or notifications.

Information collected automatically

• Which listings get opened. If you accept analytics, we record that a property page or property card was viewed, so we know which listings and which features people actually use. Each browsing session is given a random ID that lives in your browser's session storage, purely so the same listing is not counted twice. That record stores no IP address, no user agent, no device fingerprint, and it is not linked to your account or your email even when you are signed in. Closing the tab ends the session and the ID is gone. If you decline, none of this is written and no request is sent.
• Vercel Analytics: aggregate page views and page performance. It sets no cookie, and like the above it only loads after you accept.
• Cookies and browser storage: essential cookies for authentication (Supabase session tokens), plus a few small bits of interface state kept in your browser and never sent to us — your light/dark theme choice, your answer to the analytics question, whether the sidebar is open, and the page to return you to after you sign in. There is no advertising cookie, no ad pixel, no Google Analytics and no Meta pixel anywhere on this site.
• Server logs: our hosting provider keeps standard request logs, which include IP addresses, for a short period. This is ordinary web-server operation and we do not use those logs to build any profile of you.

How We Use Your Information

• To respond to your inquiry and provide property concierge services
• To send property alert digests you have opted into
• To manage your account and saved properties
• To deliver guides or resources you have requested
• To improve the website and fix technical issues

We will never sell your personal information to third parties, and we do not run advertising trackers.

Email you get from us

There are two kinds, and they are separate:

• Replies and things you asked for — the answer to your inquiry, a guide you requested, the shortlist or property alert digest you signed up for. These go out because you contacted us, and they are the service itself.
• Marketing — new listings and Japan property tips you did not specifically ask for. We only send these if you ticked the marketing box on a form. It is never ticked for you, it is never required to submit anything, and we record the moment you ticked it. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing never stops us replying to you.

Third-Party Services

We use the following services to operate Maneki Homes:

• Supabase — Database and authentication. Your account and inquiry data is stored securely in Supabase (PostgreSQL). Servers are located in the Asia-Pacific region.
• Google OAuth — If you sign in with Google, we receive your name and email from Google. We do not access your Google contacts, calendar, or other data.
• Vercel — Website hosting and anonymized analytics.
• Cloudflare R2 — Image storage for property photos.
• Resend — Transactional email delivery (inquiry confirmations, property alerts).
• MapTiler — Map tiles. MapTiler may collect anonymized usage data per their own privacy policy.
• Hetzner (Germany) — The server that runs our listing importer and our email pipelines. Buyer records pass through it when alert and shortlist emails are prepared.
• OpenAI (United States) — Translates Japanese listing text into English. We send listing content only. We do not send your name, email, budget, visa status or anything else you told us.
• Zyte — The proxy service our importer uses to fetch public listing pages. It sees listing pages, not your data.
• Discord (United States) — Our internal operations channel. New leads raise an alert there so we notice them quickly. Message history in that channel is retained by Discord.
• Our licensed Japanese partner agency (Japan) — If you decide to proceed towards an actual purchase, we hand your buying brief to the licensed Japanese real estate company that runs the transaction. Maneki Homes does not broker property; they do. This only happens for buyers who choose to go that far, and it includes what they need to help you, such as your budget, your target areas and your residency position.

Each service processes data according to their own privacy policies. We only share the minimum information required for each service to function.

Because these providers sit in different countries, your information is stored and processed outside your own country — the locations are named above. If you want to know exactly what is held where before you send us anything, email us and ask.

Property Listing Data

Maneki Homes aggregates publicly available property listing information from Japanese real estate websites and translates it into English. This listing data (addresses, prices, property specifications, photos) originates from public sources.

One thing worth naming: the free-text notes on Japanese listings often include the personal name of the agent handling the property. We strip those names out rather than republish them, and we are clearing them from listings that were imported before we started doing that. If you are an agent and you find your name on this site, email us and it comes off.

If you are a property owner, agent, or rights holder and want content removed, please visit our Content Removal page.

Data Retention

How long we keep things:

• Inquiries and buyer records — while your enquiry is live, and for 24 months after we last hear from you. Then they are deleted.
• Analytics rows (which listings were viewed) — 14 months.
• Your account and saved properties — for as long as you keep the account. Delete the account and they go with it.

You do not have to wait for those periods to run out. Ask us to delete your data at any point and we will.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate data
• Request deletion of your data
• Withdraw consent for marketing or property alert emails at any time
• Delete your account
• Complain to your data protection authority if you think we have handled your information badly. In the EU that is the supervisory authority in the country you live in; in the UK it is the Information Commissioner's Office; in Japan it is the Personal Information Protection Commission. You do not need our permission and you do not have to come to us first — though we would rather you did, so we can fix it.

How to actually do it

Email manekihomes@proton.me from the address you gave us, and say what you want — a copy, a correction, or deletion. There is no self-service button for this; a person handles each request by hand. We will acknowledge you within a few days and complete the request within 30 days. If we need to check you are who you say you are before handing over a copy of your file, we will ask.

Security

We use industry-standard security measures including encrypted connections (HTTPS), row-level security policies in our database, and secure authentication via Supabase. However, no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Children's Privacy

Maneki Homes is not directed at children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated date. Continued use of the site after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

Contact

For any privacy-related questions or requests, contact us at manekihomes@proton.me.